What's the Difference Between Organic Reach and Paid Reach?

When building your brand or business online, you'll often encounter the terms organic reach and paid reach. But what do they mean, and why should they matter to you? Let's explore the differences.

What is Organic Reach?

Organic reach refers to the number of people who see your content without any paid ads. This is achieved through actions like followers engaging with your posts, sharing your content, or people discovering your content through hashtags, searches, or recommendations. Essentially, organic reach relies on the algorithms of social platforms and your content's ability to be discovered naturally.

For example, on Instagram or Facebook, when someone interacts with your post (like, comment, or share), it may appear in the feeds of their followers, extending your reach without any spending.

Why Organic Reach Matters:

• Cost-Effective: Organic reach doesn’t require a budget, making it a fantastic option for small businesses or startups to establish a presence online.
• Authenticity: Organic content is often seen as more authentic because it isn’t “forced” by paid ads. Your audience feels they’ve discovered you and your content naturally.
• Engagement: Strong organic reach often indicates that your content connects with your audience, leading to higher engagement rates and encouraging long-term community-building.

However, organic reach does have its limitations, particularly with platform algorithms that favour paid content. Social media channels like Facebook and Instagram have reduced the organic reach of business pages in recent years to encourage paid advertising.

What is Paid Reach?

Paid reach refers to the number of people who see your content as a result of a paid advertisement. When you pay to promote a post, you can target specific demographics, locations, interests, and behaviours. Paid reach allows your content to be shown to a broader audience, even to people who don’t follow you.

Paid reach comes from advertising campaigns on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Google Ads. You set a budget and choose the type of audience you want to target, and your content appears in front of them, either in their feed or on other platforms, depending on the campaign.

Why Paid Reach Matters:

• Targeting: Paid reach allows you to fine-tune your audience. You can target based on location, age, interests, behaviour, and more.
• Faster Results: If you need to increase visibility quickly, paid reach is an effective way to get your content in front of a larger audience right away.
• Scalability: As your business grows, you can scale your paid campaigns to reach more people and continually refine your targeting.

While paid reach can deliver quick results, it requires an ongoing budget, and once the budget runs out, so does your reach.

Which Should You Use?

Both organic and paid reach have their place in a marketing strategy. Organic reach is perfect for building a community, encouraging relationships with your audience, and creating content that truly connects. Paid reach, on the other hand, can help you break through barriers, reach new audiences, and boost visibility quickly.

Ideally, a balance of both organic and paid efforts works best. Use organic reach to build trust and a dedicated following, then complement it with paid campaigns to drive traffic, increase brand awareness, or promote specific products or services.

At Gather Social, we assist businesses in navigating the balance between organic and paid strategies, ensuring the right mix to amplify your brand’s reach on social platforms. If you need our support, get in touch today.